RBNZ Takes Out Two Wins In This Year’s Central Banking Awards

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand - Te Pūtea Matua is proud to have been named as the winner of two categories in this year’s Central Banking awards.

We are honoured and very grateful to accept Central Banking’s Corporate Services Initiative Award for our Information Management Uplift, and the Green Award for our climate stress testing work, Acting Governor Christian Hawkesby says.

“These wins recognise our commitment to enabling economic wellbeing and prosperity for all New Zealanders and speaks to our vision of ‘Great Team, Best Central Bank’ by being recognised among our global peers. I am extremely proud of our team for their dedication and hard work in championing these initiatives,” Mr Hawkesby says.

Now in their 12th year, the Central Banking Awards recognise outstanding achievements in the central banking community, from the institutions themselves and their commercial partners.

Climate-related risks are already impacting New Zealand’s financial system and have the potential to pose material risks to achieving our core financial stability objective.

The stress testing programme involves modelling the impact of hypothetical, severe, but plausible climate-related scenarios to ensure the banks we regulate are sufficiently capitalised while being able to continue supporting the economy.

The judges said that through this work, the RBNZ is continuing its tradition as a pathfinder for central banks around the world. The new climate-related stress test is already the subject of interest from central banks in Africa and the Asia-Pacific region that see its bespoke approach as something they can learn from.

Understanding, identifying and managing climate-related risks is a critical element to ensuring the resilience of the financial system, Assistant Governor Simone Robbers says.

“Our stress testing approach reflects New Zealand’s unique challenges, from impacts on key sectors to the financial effects of extreme weather and insurance retreat. We’re delighted to have received this award, which recognises the importance of identifying risks to strengthen financial stability,” Ms Robbers says.

“Building capability to address these challenges requires collaboration, both domestically and internationally, and we appreciate the interest and engagement from our global peers.”

The Reserve Bank’s Information Management Uplift Project is a multi-phase initiative designed to address inconsistencies and silos in our systems, processes and tools, and consolidate all data and information across the RBNZ in a single set of tools. Through these objectives, we’re able to enhance our efficiency, mitigate risks and improve decision-making.

The award judges said the RBNZ had executed a remarkable digital transformation, underpinned by its data and information strategy. Judges were impressed by the lengths the team went to in taking a ‘people-first’ approach, ensuring the system would meet the needs of staff despite their diverse job roles.

“Increased use of the cloud and careful data governance should unlock a host of benefits for the bank in the coming years.”

Our team started an ambitious work programme to transform the way RBNZ works with data and information in 2022, Director of Knowledge and Information Management Michelle Burke says.

“Three years on, we have achieved some big wins but there is still more work to be done. The Corporate Services Initiative Award is a great recognition of our work and will inspire us as we continue to enhance our data and information management.”

© Scoop Media